Opinions

[BullDog]

Originally Posted by Medusa

Can't we fucking celebrate that? Can't we stop stomping down our own joy over Gay marriage just for a split second and take in fully what it means for the POTUS to acknowledge us?

Yes this and everything else Medusa said. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and priorities on things, but to see President Obama get picked apart by queers everywhere (not just this site) really just makes me wonder when is anything every going to be good enough? I think more progress is made from rallying behind something than picking things apart.

I know the conservatives always vote and are a hell of a lot better at showing a united front. We can pick apart President Obama and usher in another conservative Republican president. Yeah that will really help our cause.

[julieisafemme]

Originally Posted by BullDog

Yes this and everything else Medusa said. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and priorities on things, but to see President Obama get picked apart by queers everywhere (not just this site) really just makes me wonder when is anything every going to be good enough? I think more progress is made from rallying behind something than picking things apart.

I know the conservatives always vote and are a hell of a lot better at showing a united front. We can pick apart President Obama and usher in another conservative Republican president. Yeah that will really help our cause.

Maybe nothing will ever be good enough. I sure hope not! What is wrong with striving and continuing to work? Hey the civil rights act was passed and everything is good now! Hey the first wave of feminism fixed it all up and everything is good now! Woo hoo a post racism, post sexism and very soon post homophobic world!

I fail to see how discussing things makes me some big party pooper.

I voted for Obama last time and I will this time and would have even if he had not said publicly his view on gay marriage. He said it before he was President. I get that it is more meaningful now. I still am bummed though that he left it to the states. Maybe he will change that view.

[BullDog]

I prefer to build on victories. Momentum in a positive direction has the ability to change things.

[julieisafemme]

Originally Posted by BullDog

I prefer to build on victories. Momentum in a positive direction has the ability to change things.

So how is talking about what needs to be done in the future not building on victories? What does that mean to you? I am not being snarky with the question. Are you upset because there is not a longer period of celebration? To me Obama speaking out publicly is not a victory. Signed legislation is a victory. Court cases that set precedents are victories. I am very pleased to hear the President say clearly that he supports the right of same sex couples to marry.

[blush]

Originally Posted by aishah

i feel like my words are being twisted here. it was a mistake to post in this thread in the first place; this is why i've stayed out of almost all of the marriage threads period. i thought that since it was relevant to the article, maybe it wouldn't be a terrible idea to post in here, and i was wrong. being called a privileged tosser who's completely ignorant of history and is setting the movement back has made me feel like shit, so thanks for that.

i understand, cheryl, that it carries emotional weight. what i am saying is that it doesn't seem to carry all that much legal or even political weight. we're still in the same spot we were before he said it - except now my facebook feed is blowing up because people think he's the second coming.

and yes, quintease, we all help out however we can - however, since the mainstream lgbtq rights movement in the united states has turned itself into almost a single-issue movement (gay marriage), those of us who work on other issues don't get heard that often (let alone funded). and the president is not going to make any grand, sweeping statements about issues other than gay marriage. and many straight people think that gay marriage is the only issue.

i still think that's a problem. and i still think that saying that's a problem is relevant to the article that snow posted. but i'm going to shut up now.

I think perhaps you're not considering the cultural weight and ramifications of his statement and how it might positively affect ALL situations. Much remains to be seen. Much needs to be done. But it's one of the few times we've moved forward instead of backwards. At this point, there is no legal weight, but there is a ton of political weight. Sometimes a seemingly single issues such as gay marriage is a "gateway drug" to bring more change and awareness.

[aishah]

maybe so, blush. i really, honestly, truly hope you're right. that's not been my experience. my experience has been people say "wait and let us get our little bit of whatever rights we want, and it'll trickle down to you" and it never does. people get their rights and they suddenly forget about all the people they're leaving behind.

[blush]

I have been hearing many folks toss around terms like "normalized" and "mainstream" as though these are dirty words and "real" equality warriors don't want families. I find this especially laughable given that many of these so-called "mainstream" queer folk have endured the same hatred and discrimination. Do we really think Phelps is going to distinguish his hatred between mainstream and non-mainstream queer folk?

[blush]

Originally Posted by aishah

maybe so, blush. i really, honestly, truly hope you're right. that's not been my experience. my experience has been people say "wait and let us get our little bit of whatever rights we want, and it'll trickle down to you" and it never does. people get their rights and they suddenly forget about all the people they're leaving behind.

cheryl, thank you for your apology. i wish it were possible to have heated debates that attack what people say instead of attacking people on the basis of age, or on the basis of being a "privileged tosser," as quintease said. i don't understand why any of these arguments couldn't have taken apart what i said without attacking me (or anyone here) as a person (or setting up a straw man argument claiming that i don't support gay marriage, when i clearly stated i do).

It's like Reaganomics for the queer world, isn't it?

It gets heated because it is so important (all of it)and we shouldn't have to fight it.

[aishah]

Originally Posted by blush

I have been hearing many folks toss around terms like "normalized" and "mainstream" as though these are dirty words and "real" equality warriors don't want families. I find this especially laughable given that many of these so-called "mainstream" queer folk have endured the same hatred and discrimination. Do we really think Phelps is going to distinguish his hatred between mainstream and non-mainstream queer folk?

phelps isn't, but a lot of other people do.

we live in a society where we have a certain conception of what normal looks like (usually male, white, middle/upper-class, able-bodied, cisgender, monogamous, for starters). everyone else tends to be judged by how well they conform to that idea of normalcy. we police people's identities based on that conception of normalcy. some people who don't fit into those categories have some amount of acceptance, but that acceptance is always conditional and can be easily taken away.

so, for example, being a woman - if you are a woman who's monogamous, white, and middle class, and you have the right job and you dress well and you stay inside certain lines, you have a certain amount of safety because you are trying to conform to the best of your abilities. if you are poor or a woman of color or a sex worker or fat or otherwise not a "good" woman, you are policed. and sometimes even if you try as hard as you can to be a "good" woman according to the standards of our society, that one time you get raped they'll try to find ANY indication that you weren't "good" and you'll get smacked upside the head so fast.

i don't think there's anything wrong with being a monogamous, white, middle-class lesbian couple who just wants to get married and live in suburbia. i do think that that vision of what "queerness" is is what gets privileged. i do think there is a problem with saying "all queer people want to be just like you normal straight people! we're all mainstream!" because those of us who don't fit heteronormative society's ideas of what mainstream looks like then end up getting labeled as "bad queers." we're setting the movement back. recently a friend of mine who's a bisexual middle class 20-something white cisman with a nice professional job, living in suburbia, said, "god, those crazy queers at pride parades and you poly people are making us look bad." if i had a nickel for every time someone told me that...i'd be a wealthy woman.

i don't have anything wrong with mainstream people. i think mainstream people deserve rights as much as the rest of us. i'm not saying every middle class lesbian who just wants to get married and live in suburbia needs to go live on the streets and be homeless. the problem is mainstream people tend to get rights and the rest of us tend to get left behind, in my experience (at least with the mainstream feminist and disability movements). i know so many straight people who are like "i'm all for gay marriage, but all that partying and hookup culture and crossdressing and stuff is just icky and gross." if we look like monogamous middle-class straight (mainly white) couples, it's sorta kinda okay. other expressions of queerness are not okay.

obviously some straight people will never accept us no matter what. but it is true that if you try hard enough to conform and you don't have certain markers that automatically put you outside of the mainstream, you can get a little bit of conditional acceptance. and that's great. but it can be taken away in a heartbeat because that's how the society we live in operates. (and as we've seen with violence against poc and with the recent war on women, just as examples, it can be taken away from you no matter how much legal protection you think you have.) and some of us will never even have that.

[blush]

Originally Posted by blush

I have been hearing many folks toss around terms like "normalized" and "mainstream" as though these are dirty words and "real" equality warriors don't want families. I find this especially laughable given that many of these so-called "mainstream" queer folk have endured the same hatred and discrimination. Do we really think Phelps is going to distinguish his hatred between mainstream and non-mainstream queer folk?

Originally Posted by aishah

phelps isn't, but a lot of other people do.

we live in a society where we have a certain conception of what normal looks like (usually male, white, middle/upper-class, able-bodied, cisgender, monogamous, for starters). everyone else tends to be judged by how well they conform to that idea of normalcy. we police people's identities based on that conception of normalcy. some people who don't fit into those categories have some amount of acceptance, but that acceptance is always conditional and can be easily taken away.

so, for example, being a woman - if you are a woman who's monogamous, white, and middle class, and you have the right job and you dress well and you stay inside certain lines, you have a certain amount of safety because you are trying to conform to the best of your abilities. if you are poor or a woman of color or a sex worker or fat or otherwise not a "good" woman, you are policed. and sometimes even if you try as hard as you can to be a "good" woman according to the standards of our society, that one time you get raped they'll try to find ANY indication that you weren't "good" and you'll get smacked upside the head so fast.

i don't think there's anything wrong with being a monogamous, white, middle-class lesbian couple who just wants to get married and live in suburbia. i do think that that vision of what "queerness" is is what gets privileged. i do think there is a problem with saying "all queer people want to be just like you normal straight people! we're all mainstream!" because those of us who don't fit heteronormative society's ideas of what mainstream looks like then end up getting labeled as "bad queers." we're setting the movement back. recently a friend of mine who's a bisexual middle class 20-something white cisman with a nice professional job, living in suburbia, said, "god, those crazy queers at pride parades and you poly people are making us look bad." if i had a nickel for every time someone told me that...i'd be a wealthy woman.

i don't have anything wrong with mainstream people. i think mainstream people deserve rights as much as the rest of us. i'm not saying every middle class lesbian who just wants to get married and live in suburbia needs to go live on the streets and be homeless. the problem is mainstream people tend to get rights and the rest of us tend to get left behind, in my experience (at least with the mainstream feminist and disability movements). i know so many straight people who are like "i'm all for gay marriage, but all that partying and hookup culture and crossdressing and stuff is just icky and gross." if we look like monogamous middle-class straight (mainly white) couples, it's sorta kinda okay. other expressions of queerness are not okay.

obviously some straight people will never accept us no matter what. but it is true that if you try hard enough to conform and you don't have certain markers that automatically put you outside of the mainstream, you can get a little bit of conditional acceptance. and that's great. but it can be taken away in a heartbeat because that's how the society we live in operates. and some of us will never even have that.

Yanno, you're absolutely right. And so is Ender on this one. I shoved my thinking through a shit-ton of my white privilege. Sorry about that.

[Quintease]

Putting it beautifully in Australia

[Apocalipstic]

Again,

Thank you President Obama for saying what you did about Gay marriage. NO other sitting President has ever done that.

I will not participate in picking apart what he said.

I never ever thought a day would come when I was not afraid to walk down the street or go in a bar without being killed or ending up in jail.

I am grateful and proud of President Obama.

[BullDog]

White, middle class people are not the only people who get married.

[Quintease]

Originally Posted by BullDog

White, middle class people are not the only people who get married.

I was waiting for someone to say that.

[CherylNYC]

Originally Posted by BullDog

White, middle class people are not the only people who get married.

My point, exactly. Trans people of all income levels get married. Very poor people get married. The benefits to them are many, and that seems to be the issue here. Why are lgbt people who don't believe we should be working on marriage equality in the habit of telling me that marriage is a privileged state precisely BECAUSE it brings financial benefits? If it's so privileged, why is it just as easy for a poor person to get married as a wealthy one? And, what's wrong with anyone accessing a state that brings some financial stability?

I don't have the energy to search through this thread to find Ender's post wherein he asserts that there's no real benefit to bi-national couples who want to marry. That pissed me right off, but I'm already so irritated that I decided not to answer. That's a flat out ridiculous assertion, and there are a few people on this site who would be breathing fire if they were to have read it because of how deeply their forced seperation hurts them. There are far too many lgbt binational couples who are kept apart by their inability to marry. Amongst my friends, the butch member of the binational couple in the direst circumstance due to marriage inequality is a low-income woman of colour. There, now. Does that mean you can care about marriage equality now?

[Quintease]

Originally Posted by CherylNYC

My point, exactly. Trans people of all income levels get married. Very poor people get married. The benefits to them are many, and that seems to be the issue here. Why are lgbt people who don't believe we should be working on marriage equality in the habit of telling me that marriage is a privileged state precisely BECAUSE it brings financial benefits? If it's so privileged, why is it just as easy for a poor person to get married as a wealthy one? And, what's wrong with anyone accessing a state that brings some financial stability?

There are people in this thread whose sole argument against marriage seems to be that minorities won't have access to it. That's crazy. Straight people don't have to be white to be married. In fact any old poor, non-white, sex-working, non-monogamist with a criminal record can put a ring on their beloved's finger, provided they're of the opposite sex. But not gays of any ilk*.

In my own life I've had TWO ''gay" marriages. One to a TRANS MAN from a working class background (as am I from a working class background) and another to a woman who was NON WHITE and wasn't even born in the western world. Part of the reason we broke up was because she wanted to return to her part of the world which didn't recognise gay marriage (the other part was because she was an asshole, but enough about that).

Earlier I posted a link to a Facebook page. If anyone believes that Bi-national couples don't need marriage, please click on it.


*depending where you live of course

[DapperButch]

I admit to not reading every single post, but I think I pretty much have the jist here.

Not to sound ageist here, BUT, I do think that age may play a part in how significant one sees this announcement.

First, living history is different from reading/hearing about it, so the feeling of validation from the President after spending a chunk of your life sneaking into gay bars, or just worrying about being beat the hell up (with societal support), is pretty damn powerful.

Additionally, for those of us who are looking ahead to retirement and death, we tend to think about what we will need as we age and also what we will be leaving to our partners (including social security benefits). When I was in my late 20's or early 30's, this stuff wasn't as important to me. Now that I am 41 (and also had a serious health condition), I do.

I guess I am saying two things. One is tangible and one is not. Both are important.

One, for some of us Obama's announcement is the highest validation that we are just people, just like anyone else. We haven't heard that before. There is reason to believe that this will trickle down to how N. American society views, and then subsequently, treats us (like when I, a butch, am laying in a hospital bed and need my pain pill, the nurses might not move as slow to give it to me as they do now).

Two, there is more hope now that I will be able to marry my partner and she can get my social security benefits at my death. Yeah, that is a big deal.

Late for work or I would clean the above up a bit. Hope it makes sense.

[Glenn]

Pardon me for jacking the thread. Not trying to belittle anyones point here. I agree on boths points. There's no shortage of identities except for human identities. But, I think I missed the part about Prop 8 and how big business (aka money) influences politicians and the media. I just can't think of a time in herstory/history when this was'nt true. Where there is money, folks will use it to influence politics. Hell, there's almost no point in being rich if your not going to use it to control politics and the media and the environment, and I don't think this is ever going to change.

[girl_dee]

Maybe i'm a dreamer but i look forward to the day when none of this is an issue.

In the grand scheme of things the President announced equal rights in marriage for all... whoopdee doo! To us that should be a given, equal rights. BUT He is also the FIRST President to make such a (sadly) bold statement. If he isn't re-elected, never heard of again, he paved the way for the next ..... and that is a BIG thing. He has made it OK for the President of the United States to speak up for our rights.

i am not a big flag waiver, i never have been. i don't want to stand out because i am gay, i want to fit into society, to show society that we live and breathe just like they do. Straight folks don't waive the straight flag.
But until we are equal in ever single right it's necessary for us to stand up for every single right we are denied. Some of us NEED a President to speak up for us.

Being gay in Canada is so much different than in the states. It's just not as big of a deal here, i hope one day it is like that in the states. Until then we can't stop speaking up and backing those who do! If we pick apart the people who are trying to help, what good will that do?

[Cin]

Ya know I get that words are not legislation. But it is also true that you cannot legislate acceptance. Therefore it is also useful to have people in the public eye, especially respected individuals, advocating acceptance. Yet we do need the legislation. However to get the legislation before the acceptance is not without its own set of difficulties. I imagine you could pass a law making bigotry of any type illegal and you would not have any less bigots just more criminals.

Still laws need to change, however when they do it does not guarantee much of anything except exactly what the law allows. If you are allowed to marry then that’s exactly what you will get. No more, sometimes less, like when someone refuses to marry you because it’s against their religion, or if you can afford and want a wedding some will still be able to refuse to plan your wedding or allow you to hold your wedding in their establishment because of religious concerns. Perhaps because they advocated enthusiastically for the preservation of their particular version of human rights.

When humans are not allowed to exercise what are considered human rights there needs to be a law in order for many of us to have any recourse, because clearly human rights are not a guarantee for all human beings. And for many of us humans they are non-existent unless specifically legislated.

Legislation won’t change the fact that some people will still hate queers of any ilk (or hate some particular ilk much more energetically and emphatically than other ilks) and wish us nothing but pain and misery and even participate in various activities geared toward ensuring that we suffer pain and misery abundantly. But it will make certain activities geared toward creating specific pain and misery against the law. It will also add a small measure of protection in the form of consequences for breaking the law and trying to withhold the specific human right a specific legislation has granted us. And whether we personally want that right or not it’s still in all our best interests that we are validated legally as being worthy of a specific human right. I get that doesn’t mean diddly squat in regards to the plethora of basic human rights many of us are still denied.

It also won’t change that some of us can and some of us will choose to join mainstream society. It won’t change that some (queer republicans come to mind) willfully, even cheerfully participate in their own oppression because they realize that the oppression of the rest of us, even if it means that they are also minimally oppressed in one aspect of their lives, is of more financial value to them than personal freedom and that equality in any form simply means less for them.

It won’t change that some of us are myopic and see the world through a very privileged lens. It won’t change that some of us only have interest in what personally affects us and when we get what we want we go back to apathy, beer and baseball or whatever entertains us. It won’t change much, but it will require one particular human right to be available to one group of human beings previously denied it. And to me this can never be a bad thing.

I guess I am trying to understand what exactly is being said here. If you are against gay marriage could you explain specifically what gay marriage will do to oppress certain segments of the queer population? Is it that it drains too much energy from various movements? Or is seen as the only legitimate movement? And if you are not against gay marriage per se, could you explain what you are against surrounding gay marriage.

I have to add that the fact that without Canada’s federal recognition of same sex couples rights to immigrate Truly Scrumptious and I would not have been able to live together and that might make it difficult for me to understand another point of view. Neither of us are occupationally or financially privileged so we would have had no way to circumvent the immigration laws in the US. Family class was the only possible avenue open to either of us for immigration. So without Canada’s immigration laws it would have been exceedingly challenging, probably impossible, for us to be together sharing our lives every day (at least legally). I get that kind of relationship is not for everyone but it is for some of us and I doubt that sexual preference, class, race, gender, sex, intelligence, or even mental health dictates the existence of this need in an individual. Besides I don’t believe human rights are rights because they are popular or because everyone wants to exercise them.